Despite Asia Talk, Navy Will Send Newest Ships to Mideast

By Spencer Ackerman

Wired.com
June 27, 2012


The Navy is eager to build up its presence in Asia and the Pacific. But the so-called “Asia Pivot” doesn’t tell the full story. Over the next four years, the Navy will conduct a greater ship surge in the Middle East — which is also where it’ll send its newest, latest kinds of surface ships.

That’s what Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Navy’s top officer, told Pentagon reporters on Wednesday. The Pacific “rebalancing” — the Pentagon doesn’t call it a “pivot” anymore — is still on. But in order to move its traditional aircraft carriers, destroyers and cruisers to the far East, the Navy’s going to put its newer kinds of surface ships in the Persian Gulf.

In fact, over the next few years, the Navy’s biggest muscle movement will be to the Gulf, not to the Pacific. Between now and 2017, the Navy will add nine more ships to the Gulf and northern Indian Ocean; it’ll add five to Asia. By 2020, the Navy will bring an additional three ships to the western Pacific, and add no more to its anticipated hyper-modern Gulf fleet.

“What you’ll see here [in the Middle East] is the evolution of the Afloat Forward Staging Base coming online, combined with Littoral Combat Ships coming online and deploying, combined with mobile landing platforms coming online,” Greenert said. “So these are newer ships and different ships that will add to the [Persian] Gulf inventory.”

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